


Downtime

by utsu



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7671244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiro and Keith comfort each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtime

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this beautiful art](http://ghostbananas.tumblr.com/post/146391139422/downtime) by [ghostbananas](http://ghostbananas.tumblr.com)! If you haven't already, go check out their art!! It's a treasure trove of greatness :^)

By the time the three moons of this planet glide into a sweeping arc across the center of a glistening midnight sky, the paladins are only just heading back into their ship.

Hunk grumbles something about being starved, hands rubbing idly over his stomach, and Pidge elbows him lightly in the side, the corner of her lips curling up in amusement.

“I’ll make you something, if you’d like,” she says, uncharacteristically soft after so much time spent training. She follows it quickly with a stern expression, voice unbending when she adds, “but just this once! I’m not cooking for you all the time or anything, don’t get any _ideas_.”

Hunk only laughs, says something grateful in a burst of air. Keith glances over his shoulder and finds Lance hunched with lips pursed, bright eyes gleaming. He mentions a facemask as they walk down the hallways, and turns off in the direction of his room before anyone can playfully mock him for it. Keith isn’t even certain if any of them have the energy for it, though, not after the grueling work Allura had just guided them through for the better half of their day.

Shiro walks at Keith’s side, their fingertips close enough to graze each other with every step. They don’t look at each other, but Keith knows without having to look that Shiro is blushing, in just the same way that he is. He lets their fingers continue to brush each other, teasing and playful, intimate.

Shiro follows Keith wordlessly to his wing of the hall, his footsteps silent. Keith pushes into his room and beckons Shiro in with a single glance over his shoulder, ignoring the way that Shiro hesitates at the threshold.

This is still new for them both, this easy intimacy, but Shiro especially.

The last time that someone had specifically sought Shiro out of a crowd, his mind had been torn asunder in response, sloppy hands seeping through his memories, changing everything around.  
  
Keith reaches out to him when he closes the door, lets his fingertips trail over the sharp line of Shiro’s cheekbone. He feels Shiro shiver, watches the way his eyes blink slowly, caught and moved. He smiles, a slow and careful creature, shy and fickle and hidden in the shadows of his room, but Shiro catches it all the same. He mirrors it, and Keith knows his heart will already be racing when he reaches out to feel for it.

He lets his fingers slide down over Shiro’s chest, ignores for the moment the way Shiro sucks in a startled gasp, and lets his fingers wrap loosely around Shiro’s wrist. He pulls lightly, a playful tug, and Shiro abides without hesitation. He steps closer to Keith until his shoulders blot out the doorway behind him entirely, and his eyes catch the tricyclic arc of moonlight that slips through Keith’s only window, and hold it.

Keith’s lips part of their own volition, and he realizes he’s been staring. The flush on his cheeks is automatic, as is the way it spreads out far and wide, flashing up to the tips of his ears and reaching down with hot trailing fingers over the expanse of his chest. Shiro’s eyes grow heavy, gleaming so spectacularly, and Keith’s own heart trips up in his chest.

“Come on, big guy,” he says, voice pitched so carefully low. He watches Shiro swallow, a heavy and involuntary movement—a tell.

Keith remembers the exact expression that moved over Shiro’s face the first time he ever spoke that epithet aloud, and the way that Shiro had moved to curl his fingers into fists just to hide the way he had trembled.

Keith licks his lips and Shiro can do nothing but to follow the movement with his eyes, to trace it so attentively, to mark it into remembrance. This, Keith thinks, is a memory Shiro will keep.

He moves a step backwards, hand still wrapped around the thick of Shiro’s wrist, guiding him until they stop in the center of his room, where no furniture resides to impede them. He watches the way Shiro breathes, deep and straight from his chest. It’s invigorating, how casually Keith can slip past Shiro’s defenses, his every lapse in control. How he can reach out and barely touch him, a ghost’s breath of intention, and still make Shiro _shake_.

He starts to crouch, slow enough for Shiro to follow suit without Keith’s fingers pulling away from Shiro’s wrist. They settle in and sit there in the middle of Keith’s room, legs crossed, knees touching. Shiro leans forward to rest his elbows on his thighs and smiles, and it takes Keith’s breath away, the simplicity and the affection of it.

It’s a welcome reminder that Keith is not the only one who slips so effortlessly past defenses.

He reaches out and lets his free hand press against the material of Shiro’s training shirt, sticky with sweat and clinging. He closes his eyes and is still, focusing entirely on his fingertips; those wrapped around Shiro’s wrist, feeling the bound of his steady pulse, and those pressed over the delicate cage of his ribs.

He waits until he feels Shiro’s heart, there, too, before he opens his eyes.

Shiro’s eyes are closed, and every sculpted inch of him is relaxed under the warmth and delicacy of Keith’s touch. Keith’s smile grows, then, something of splendor and acceptance, of welcome. He brings the hand from Shiro’s heart up to his bowed chin, shifts his wrist only enough to gently lift that chin back up.

Shiro’s eyes open and trace Keith’s every feature so lovingly he can barely breathe with the weight of it, with the way that Keith’s free hand moves so cautiously forward, just to be able to touch Keith’s knee. It’s with this gesture that Keith finally unwraps his fingers from Shiro’s wrist, from the beautiful press of his pulse against Keith’s fingertips, and moves both hands up to hold the square of Shiro’s jaw.

He leans in the rest of the way until their foreheads press together, and they share the breath between them. Keith keeps his eyes open long enough to trace the ever-familiar slide of Shiro’s smile, and the slight quiver in his lips where emotion overwhelms.

The room is quiet around them, steady and still. All of Keith’s possessions that he’s accumulated from the planets and the galaxies they’ve visited together sit idly by, audience to the intimacy of his and Shiro’s dawning relationship.

Shiro begins to hum so tenderly, so quietly; a tune as familiar to Keith as rebellion, as instinct, and by now he could so easily join in—but he doesn’t. He only remains pressed close to Shiro, listening, and feeling.

He feels Shiro’s fingertips against his knee, even through the material of his pants, and the heat and the familiarity of them are freeing.

Keith has never met a rule or custom he hasn’t broken, mostly willingly, and truly he’s never been quite fond of either. He’s always found better providence in gut feelings and his own morality; regardless of how isolated it has left him. How lonely.

But Shiro kind of changes everything; at least, the moment he welcomes Keith’s insistent advances and unfolds unto his own hidden desires, somehow the pieces _shift_.

And they shift in Keith’s favor. Shiro’s voice vibrates in the base of his throat, Keith’s tune wrapped delicately amidst his vocal chords, and every tense point of pressure in Keith’s body unwinds and falls away. The sharp coil of his spine relaxes, and he sinks ever closer into Shiro’s warmth, until all he can focus on is his melody and his breathing.

Being there together with Shiro and his solid strength, the endless tranquility of his compassion and his support—

Keith has never been much for convention or routine, but in this? In the routine of Shiro’s warmth and their combined intimacy growing steady and sweet into the glowing air around them, Keith thinks he can fall in line quite easily.

He leans in past that last bit of space between them, and he presses his lips against Shiro’s with promise.

And Shiro smiles.


End file.
